Benevolance

I'd be willing to be that international revenues would be a drop in the bucket compared to local sales, and they probably don't see it worth the hassle so far.

Ikioi looks like he's on an album cover.

All we need is a Mark Buckton article calling on Kise to retire to cement the tsuna.

It's 1:5 overall, 1:4 if you look at it since Kise made ozeki, 1:3 if you look at the past three years. Kise is narrowing the ratio in matches against Hak. ...but, my point was that this is hardly useful alone. Hak is almost always finishing 12-3 or better. His 12-3 performances are usually a jun-yusho. So while Kise needs to be able to beat Hak, yes, he needs to be going into the final weekend with the same score or better than Hak to have a reasonable chance at winning a yusho. The guys who are not Hak and who won yushos typically finished with 14-1 scores or better. Tenho and Terunofuji notwithstanding, and the tinfoil hat guys can address those yushos. If Kise comes in down a win or two, yet manages to beat Hak, what is the best that happens? A face off, against someone who is going to take 2 out of 3 (or 3 out of 4, I don't care how you figure it) matches. The last two tournaments, Kise has beat the guys he has supposed to beat. He's actively been in contention until the last three days. He simply needs to keep doing that. But, many guys can put together a couple good back-to-back tournaments. Ama and Kakuryu parlayed those into tsunas. Perhaps we've Kise's best with a pair of 13-2s. I don't know. Nagoya will be interesting to watch, at least.

I don't have anything useful to add to the thread, but I really like these trivia bits. Please don't stop as long as you enjoy doing it.

Ha ha. I only just read Mark's "Hang up the mawashi already, Hakuho, you're done" article. Suppose I read it in a rather different light, given Hak's follow up zensho yusho tournament.

Also known as a Full Gaga.

Maybe he can do a targeted diet and gain fat just on his knee caps so they're stronger? :-|

Kise just needs to be consistent and do what he's done the last two basho. He can beat Hak about 1 in 3 times, and that's actually a pretty good record. But in the past, Kise's dropped dumb matches to weak rikishi; something Hak almost never does. So, when Kise beats Hak, it's rarely relevant. Now, in the last two basho, Kise has had his head in the game from the get-go. Two basho is hardly a trend. But if Kise can keep this current level up, he'll get a yusho. Though I'm less convinced he can parlay that into a tsuna.

Those bento look delicious. But my real question is: did Takamisakari know who his opponent was going to be or did he stick to his personal tradition?

That sounds like a good smooth-over job, actually.

I suspect Hakuho remembers who broke his winning streak, twice.

I'm trying to figure out how to edit my keyboard to type nice things about Gōeidō. Do I need Linux?

And if Brodi is back in Canada, I seriously doubt there will be a reconciliation. As Kintamayama said, running away down the street is one thing, heading to a different country is another...

Hak's just a pretender. 40 yushos is the benchmark of a real yokozuna.

The important thing is that this was an exciting basho, Hakuho was dominant, Kise was a runner up, and Goeidou was Goeidouish. All is as it should be in NSKlandia.

It's a mongolian conspiracy. You can only ctrl-v if Hakuho allows it.

Sure, but the range is something like: Hak wins it! <----------> Hak's injured, I've got a 25% chance of winning this!

...I'm not sure I've heard anyone say that Hakuho doesn't dominate today's sumo...

I already gave Hak the yusho around day 5, when his only serious opposition both had 1 loss each.

I think Ichinojo has all the physical attributes to succeed, but not all of the mental attributes. He'll have a successful career, but it will be filled with visions of all the things that could have been.

Yeah, but...uh...he stood toe to toe with a guy 100 kilos lighter and the gyoji felt bad it was so close. It was sort of the equivalent of a participation medal.

My favorite fight, though.

It's painful simply watching Akiseyama trying to get both hands on the dohyo...

I think Harumafuji might be the only wrestler canny and quick enough to henka Hakuho. Oh, man. I just had a thought: how funny would it be if Hak and Ama double-henka on senshuraku? (Laughing...)